Winnipeg writer David Bergen is gracing the cover of the June issue of Quill & Quire, Canada’s magazine of book news and reviews. Bergen has the cover story because he has written a fantastic novel, The Time In Between. I was lucky enough to read an advance copy, and I loved it.
David Bergen’s previously acclaimed novel was The Case of Lena S., which won the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. I didn’t much care for The Case of Lena S. It was set in Winnipeg, which was interesting to me, but the characters didn’t grab me. Not so with The Time In Between.
Charles Boatman is an American who fought in the Vietnam war, then came home to his wife and kids and could never quite get settled. He eventually leaves his cheating wife and becomes a bit of a recluse in interior BC. But the ex-wife dies and the 3 kids end up on his doorstep. That’s the backdrop and Bergen really quickly gets you into the story and the tensions of Charles and his eldest daughter Ada.
If this was a film, the second act starts out with Charles returning to Vietnam. He disappears. His kids (now adults) Ada and Jon, leave the younger sister Del in BC, and travel to Danang, Vietnam to search for their father. Their quest to find their father is incredibly engaging. The focus of the story moves back and forth–from Charles to Ada to Jon to Del to various Vietnamese characters. The whole story is elusive and yet crafted in a way that as a reader you are not frustrated with the pace.
We’re all on some sort of quest narrative, and Bergen has definitely found his way. In the Quill article he is quoted as saying, “wasn’t it Samuel Beckett who said that with every book you are bound to fail? But the next time, you hope to go out and fail better.” Bergen has failed marvelously. The Time in Between releases in August and according to Quill, Bergen will be on a 10-city tour from Vancouver to Halifax.
If you’re looking for interesting Canadian fiction, check out David Bergen. The Time In Between